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5-08-2015, 15:11

Aristotle

Philosopher

Born: 384 b. c.e.; Stagirus, Chalcidice, Greece Died: 322 b. c.e.; Chalcis, Euboea, Greece Category: Philosophy

Life Aristotle (ar-uhs-TAHT-uhl), one of the world’s greatest philosophers, was born in Stagirus, a little town on the peninsula of Chalcidice. He was the son of Nicomachus, a physician, and Phaestis. The family was middle class, of moderate means. While Aristotle was yet a child his father became court physician to Amyntas II of Macedonia, the grandfather of Alexander the Great. From birth Aristotle, as the son of a physician, was a member of the Asclepiadae guild. His interest in science and particularly in biology was only natural, for his family had a long tradition in medicine. He was soon without parents, however, because they died when he was a boy. He became a ward of a friend and relative of the family, Proxenus.

At eighteen he became a student under Plato at the Academy in Athens, not primarily because he was interested in philosophy but because the Academy offered the best education in Greece in science and other basic studies. Aristotle distinguished himself as a student, even though there were some who were irritated by his interest in dress and by his lisping, mocking air. He remained with the Academy, always a central figure, but becoming increasingly critical of some of Plato’s ideas until Plato’s death in 347 b. c.e.

When Speusippus became the Academy’s leader after Plato’s death, Aristotle accepted the invitation of Hermias, the king of Atarneus in Mysia, to join him there and become part of a philosophical circle. While with Hermias, Aristotle spent a considerable part of his time studying marine biology along the Aeolic coast. He also found time to admire and marry Hermias’s niece and adopted daughter, Pythias, with whom he had a daughter of the same name.

After spending three years in Mysia, following the assassination of Hermias by agents of the Persians, Aristotle moved to Mytilene on the island of Lesbos, where he continued his independent biological research.

Principal Works of Aristotle

The works listed here date to Aristotle’s Second Athenian Period (335-323 b. c.e.), except for Zoology, which is dated to the Middle Period (348-336 b. c.e.):

Analytica priora (Prior Analytics, 1812)

De poetica (Poetics, 1705)

Analytica posterioria (Posterior Analytics, 1812) Aporemata Homerika (Homeric Problems, 1812) Aristotelous peri genesefs kai phthoras (Meteoroligica, 1812)

Athenaifn politeia (The Athenian Constitution, 1812)

De anima (On the Soul, 1812)

Ethica Nicomachea (Nicomachean Ethics, 1797) Metaphysica (Metaphysics, 1801)

Organon (English translation, 1812)

Physica (Physics, 1812)

Politica (Politics, 1598)

TechnT rhetorikes (Rhetoric, 1686)

Ton peri ta zfia historian (Zoology, 1812)

Topica (Topics, 1812)

He then left to undertake the tutelage of Alexander, the thirteen-year-old son of Philip II of Macedonia who would one day become known as Alexander the Great. Philip, who had known Aristotle since boyhood, was aware of Aristotle’s reputation as a brilliant scientist and philosopher. Aristotle gave Alexander the usual Greek education, with emphasis upon Homer and the dramatists, and with considerable discussion of the philosophy and art of politics. The work was conducted at Pella and later at Mieza. It was virtually terminated when Alexander was appointed regent for his father in 340 b. c.e., while Philip was engaged in a campaign to complete the subjugation of all Greece. Aristotle settled in Stagirus and became friends with Antipater, later regent in Greece.

When Philip was assassinated in 336 b. c.e., Aristotle returned to Athens to continue his scientific work. At about that time Speusippus, Plato’s successor at the Academy, died, and Xenocrates of Chalcedon was appointed in his place. Aristotle was not tempted to return to the Academy; instead, he decided to start a new school in the Lyceum, a grove sacred to Apollo Lyceius, located to the northeast of Athens. He rented some buildings there and acquired pupils. Because of Aristotle’s custom of walking up and down under a covered court, or peripatos, with a group of students while lecturing or discussing some philosophical or scientific matter, his group became known as the Peripatetics. The subjects that needed special study and individual attention were taught in the mornings to small groups, while those that could adequately be taught to larger numbers were reserved for the afternoons or evenings. Emphasis was upon biology, history, and philosophy. During the twelve years he was at the Lyceum, Aristotle gave hundreds of lectures, of which some notes are extant and constitute the material which has come to be identified as his works.

Shortly after his return to Athens from Macedonia, Aristotle’s wife died. He formed a lasting union out of wedlock with a woman of Stagirus,

Aristotle. (Library of Congress)

Herpyllis, with whom he had a son, Nicomachus, whose name has been used to distinguish the Ethica Nichomachea (Nicomachean Ethics, 1797), that version of Aristotle’s ethics recorded by his son, from the Eudemian Ethics, the version of a pupil, Eudemus.

Alexander died in 323, and as a result of ensuing anti-Macedonian feeling, Aristotle was charged with impiety, the same capital charge that led to the death of Socrates. The charge, founded on nothing more than some poetry that Aristotle had written twenty years before to honor the memory of Hermias, was provoked by Aristotle’s continued friendship with Antipater of Macedonia. Aristotle retreated to Chalcis, accompanied by several of his followers, and died there the following year. His will provided for the emancipation of some of his slaves and protected the rest from being sold.

Influence Aristotle classified the sciences; added to the scientific data in many fields, particularly in biology; encouraged and developed ideas in ethics and politics; and developed logic as a science of reasoning. The Lyceum, largely because of the creative energy of its founder, soon became the outstanding school in Greece, outranking the Academy, and Aristotle—as the most encompassing mind of the age—achieved a preeminence which the ensuing two thousand years have not dispelled. Through Aristotle’s influence, not only his own work and that of the Peripatetics but also the teachings of earlier Greek philosophers from Thales to Plato were synthesized and preserved. No other Greek philosopher, with the exception of Plato, has had a greater an influence on scientific, ethical, and logical thought in Western civilization.

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Aristotle